Another Road to Paradise
by 11x20
Summary: AU. Many years ago, in the dark and filthy subway beneath South Ashfield, Walter gathered the courage to speak to Cynthia, the girl he admired from afar. What if the subway queen had not rejected him? Would there still be such misery?
1. 01

_"Always crawling away like a worm. What are you doing here?"_

"I can't remember. I hardly care. There are …too many memories… I forget when I come here."

_"Look at me, then, and tell me just how weak you really are."_

"I'm not weak."

_"That woman tells you every day just how weak you are. Why don't you reiterate that to me?"_

"It's not true…"

_"You're so much better at lying to yourself than to that whore."_

"I don't see why I should lie to her."

_"She speaks nothing but lies to you."_

"Does she…? I hadn't noticed."

With a heavy sigh, Walter looked up and felt small droplets of sweat trickling down his face. A salty taste crossed his lips. Everything in the world around him was scorching and painted with a dark crimson glow that could give anyone the impression of hell.

He never cared to look up at the man atop the stairs, who always conversed with him upon arrival in the torrid, nonsensical world. Together they spoke for hours, sharing thoughts and useless advice as the world beneath the stairwell lulled in and out like ocean waves.

Small, glowing red embers were rising up from the darkness. Walter reached out and snuffed one out in his palm, "I don't want to go back."

_"You should. After all, it is her birthday, is it not?"_

"Fuck her birthday."

The voice behind him gave a hushed laugh, _"You love her so dearly."_

"I love her so much I want to destroy her."

_"Then do it. Kill her. End her. Bring down upon her all the pain she has brought you."_

Walter shook his head and gave a tired smile, digging through one of the pockets of his weathered green jacket, "…I can't do that. …I would not be here now if it were not for her."

_"You would be a god now, if it were not for her."_

Walter paused, feeling his fingertips brushing along a familiar cotton and yarn object in his pockets. The smile still lingered on his face as he acknowledged the stair man's words, "Yes… I suppose anything would be godlike compared to this."

_"She could be one of them, Walter."_

"Twenty-one... but then everyone would suffer."

_"Are you so certain?"_

"Probably not… things are always kept from me."

_"Just the peace you deserve. Paradise."_

"I can find paradise on my own, thanks." Walter produced a small doll from his pocket, a slight smile emerging like a ray of sunlight on a gray, winter's day. A loud, almost bell-like chord was struck deep below them, in the tumbling world. As he stroked the doll's face softly he added, "It is somewhere. I have just been too frightened to leave this place…"

_"There are many roads to Paradise, Walter."_

"Then I am bound to stumble upon one of them."

Walter looked down past the doll, at the empty darkness beyond the foot of the stairs. He stopped stroking the doll as he realized the glowing embers had ceased, and droplets of rain began to fall. When he looked up, the iron wrought gates that formed a ceiling above him began to liquefy. He watched as they melted into raindrops and revealed a dark, cloudy sky overhead. The stairs beneath him were gone, and the tumbling, churning world in flux had vanished.

He sat on the steps outside Ashfield Gardens Apartments, holding the doll in his hand, having been forcibly returned to the world he had sought escape from. He shook his head and returned the doll to its warm place in his coat pocket and stood. The flowers he had bought—_her_ favorite, white carnations with purple tips—had become dusted with raindrops.

It was May 13th… she was turning twenty-four, but as he climbed the stairs to apartment #204, he could only imagine the wrinkles around her eyes and the crevices at the corners of her lips. She had always looked much older than she really was—and in her teens, it fooled him (and many others) into believing she was eighteen or nineteen when she had been merely thirteen. Now, however, after years of drug abuse—meth, cocaine, speedballs, OxyContin, she was a withered shell of her former beauty.

…A wrinkled, almost shriveled stomach that had once been soft and flat, eyes that looked weary all the time, and a mouth that finally looked as disgusting as the words that came from it.

But he still loved her, he reassured himself. He was nearing apartment #204 when he began to hear all-too-familiar cries and moans from inside. The neighbors all the way down the hall had probably been dealing with the noise for a few hours, knowing _her_. Keys in one hand and wet flowers in the other, he paused outside the door. There were two voices within—_hers_ and another man's.

_"Fool you once shame on her, fool you forty times… well, we should all simply take a moment to pity you."_

"…be quiet." Walter breathed.

_"What did you honestly expect? For her to be waiting for you like a good little girl?"_

"I didn't expect anything…"

_"You should kill them. Both of them… that large French knife you used last night preparing dinner… you remember mulling over what it would be like to tear into her flesh. To carve away what was left of her disgusting body. Or what about that linoleum knife in the cabinet just past the bathroom? You cannot pretend the curiosity is not there."_

"I wouldn't hurt her." Walter whispered, leaning his forehead against the door as the moans became louder. He squeezed his eyes shut and unconsciously clamped his fingers tight around the plastic wrapping of the bouquet. The flower stems were snapping beneath his white-knuckled grip.

His voice shivered as he repeated, speaking only into an empty, cold corridor, "I wouldn't hurt her. I love her."

_"The tip of that knife would feel amazing would it not? …running smoothly over the curve of her breasts…"_

Walter unlocked the door and stepped inside. The noise didn't cease—he had come in unnoticed. He set the bouquet down on the table and felt the… _curiosity_ which the stair man had described rising up in the back of his mind. Nipping at his fingertips like a hungry little dog. His eyes were drawn to the kitchen nearby… that French knife among other cutlery were still lying out beside a cutting board. Looking ahead, he saw their silhouettes in their bedroom through a cracked door. Two tangled bodies glistening with sweat and grinding with almost desperate lust. His woman, his _Cynthia_ was crying out another man's name he didn't care to know.

It wasn't the first time, Walter thought as he stepped into the kitchen, his amber eyes on the tantalizing blade. In fact, it hadn't even been five months into his relationship with his teenage sweetheart when he saw her from afar, down on her knees with her face down on some other boy's lap.

_That was about ten years ago, maybe eleven?_ With a smile, Walter picked up the knife, picturing the way her skin would tear beneath it.

He set the knife down on the counter. They would have their privacy—after all, it was Cynthia's birthday. She was probably getting a far better present from _Greg_ than Walter could have ever given her. Leaving the apartment as quietly as he came, the only reminder he had ever been there sat damp on the table; white carnations with striped purple tips.

As he descended the stairs, all that ran through his mind, despite his best efforts to erase the sounds he had just heard, was Cynthia. He was not a gullible man—he had been disillusioned with the girl he had once seen as a pure and beautiful goddess for years. But even he admitted he was a very _dependant_ man. There were far too many things in his life that summed up to the man he was, craving the attention of that decaying woman like some love-starved child.

After all, he mused, that was probably what he really was deep down—just some desperate, love-starved little boy with low self esteem. However, the worst part of his life, he knew, was how self-aware he was. It was without effort that he recognized where his problems lie and what could be done to fix them. But that was when a bottle of Jack Daniels and a blurry, giggling balancing act on the railing o the Adler St. Bridge took his mind from the issues.

When he exited the apartment complex and made his way toward the parking lot, he cursed under his breath, realizing he had left his keys in the house.

_Well, fuck me._

There was no chance in hell that he would go back. It was no big deal. He had taken the subway home from South Ashfield, and could take it right back without a problem.

_South Ashfield… that sounds much better than this place._

In all honesty, anywhere but there was as appealing as an oasis to a desert wanderer. With a short walk down the street, he was down in the subway and it wasn't long before he had boarded the first train en route to the wonderful-sounding 'anywhere but here' South Ashfield.

_"Why do you put up with that whore?"_

"She loves me." Walter whispered into the empty train.

He was met with laughter. The laughter from one, obnoxious stair man that sounded like an audience bursting at the seams after a standup comedian told a classic joke. It made his stomach knot up in bitter, anxious rage. At that moment he was aching to acknowledge the humiliation and the degradation of the last ten years. The cherry on the top of that tall, filthy cake of dirt would be that long, heavy French knife plunged right between Cynthia's breasts.

Walter leaned against the foggy window and made an effort to push the violent thoughts from his mind. He was not a violent man, he reminded himself. The only fights he had ever been in he had lost, and Cynthia's sisters—the elder Catalina and the snot-nosed teenager Julie—were very adamant about reminding him how much of a worm he was every single day.

Ah, yes—Catalina and Julie, he mused with a bitter taste, imagining them thrown in the same shallow grave as Cynthia and being buried somewhere in the forest outside of Silent Hill. Neither of them ever enjoyed his presence. Catalina had established early on that Cynthia could "do better". Julie, however, was a far different story; a very different and uncomfortable story.

The South Ashfield Heights Station hadn't been more than twenty minutes away by train. When he stepped out into intensifying rain, he realized that walking in that rain wouldn't have been very uplifting at all. A liquor store down the street held the Jack Daniels he had promised his tired mind earlier—and the subway tracks held promise of an even greater release for his tired body. In and out, he paid, without a single word and without even a glance at the cashier's face. As he walked back to the station, he was swallowing the whiskey fast. It didn't take long for that pleasant buzz to spiral out into an almost sloshing dizziness that distorted his thoughts and movement.

_"You look absolutely pathetic."_

A clumsy Walter stumbled over the last few stairs and leaned against the cold, tile walls.

_Where am I again?_

_"You were just at the bit where you intoxicate yourself and then commit a very improper suicide."_

_I'm sure there's a ritual for that, isn't there?_

_"You were such an intelligent boy. It is indeed a shame to see you go this way. Not my loss, however. In fact, I do not believe it is truly anyone's loss."_

Walter scoffed at that remark, "You're n-not a very good friend, are you?"

_"You and I had never even made it past acquaintances."_

"That's because you're me."

_"Of course. Let's say that."_

Walter took a seat on a bench not too far from the Simmons St. platform, taking long, almost nauseating swigs of his drink. All he wanted was to become careless enough not to stop himself from stumbling on to the tracks and passing out. When all logic that could prevent his newest suicide attempt was erased, the liquor's job was complete. This one could not fail—there would be no way it could fail. He would be crushed painfully and ended certainly.

Nothing like that attempt almost a half a year ago, when he drunkenly opted to jump off of the Adler St. Bridge. Now it wasn't authorities or any kind Samaritan that stopped his suicide attempt—in fact, it had all gone according to plan, up until the dying part. After losing consciousness beneath the freezing river, he somehow, by such spiteful luck, awakened in a hospital with an angered Cynthia to belittle and curse at him as soon as he woke up.

Of course, she backed her rage with a tearful, _"I was so worried, I was so scared for you!"_

But the only thing she worried about, he thought with new distaste, was that with him gone, the rent wouldn't be paid that month, or the small debt she racked up with one of her dealers wouldn't get paid. As soon as the wrath of Cynthia had subsided, spiteful little Julie thought it would be funny to get her riled up again by mentioning, _"If Walter really loved you he wouldn't be off trying to kill himself, Cynthia!"_

Julie, he thought with a sense of disgust, had actually been tolerable at one point. She enjoyed his company and enjoyed talking to him—she was probably the most intelligent of the three street-walking, drug-addicted Velasquez sisters. However, a failed attempt at seducing him years ago had led to the bad blood between them. He still felt a sinking, almost nauseating feeling at the memory of her forcing her skinny, naked body on him.

_"Is it truly any better than if you had stayed with Wish House?"_

Walter shook his head, smiling and thinking in an intoxicated haze,

_No… at least I got a few good fucks in before I died._

He stood on wobbly legs, feeling the heavy glass bottle slipping between his fingertips like it weighed a ton. A small leap down into the railway line, just a few yards ahead would lead to a very warm, welcoming sleep. It would be a wonderful and heavy sleep, he knew, one that not even the bellowing engine of the train would wake him from. Although…

_Oh god…_

Although…

_Oh god… oh no… oh fuck…_

As if acting on reflex, he felt something warm rising within his throat and dove into a nearby bathroom and forgot all about the railway line.

* * *

"…and so at the end we've got Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt huddled together in this barn full of like… knives and blades I don't know, it was some Texas Chainsaw Massacre stuff in there, and they tie themselves down to some pipe with their belts while this F5 tornado rolls over them like it's nothing."

"Oh come on… come on, that's…" replied the voice of popular rock-radio personality Rob "RJ" Jameson.

"Yeah, I know, I'm just sitting there like, '_Jurassic Park was so much better…_ _it had Velociraptors.'_ Then my wife's like, 'Oh Tom, look, there's a hurricane over them!' and I'm just shaking my head like, _'What is this crap?'_" Tom, "Beat Dog" Ichihara continued.

Rising static obscured their voices for a moment, and Eileen Galvin swung her hand over her sea of blankets. As if her arm were an uncontrollable force of pure bulk, she shoved the radio off of her nightstand by unintentional clumsiness. The sound of it crashing to the wooden floor startled her enough to wake.

"Well, you know, _Twister_ wasn't all that bad. I actually liked it more than Jurassic Park. Helen Hunt was a lot hotter in Twister—" RJ was going on about that movie that had just come out a few days ago.

Beat Dog burst into laughter, "That wasn't even Helen Hunt, you idiot! That was Laura Dern!"

"What?"

"It was Laura Dern, that wasn't even Helen Hunt!"

"…Seriously? No, you're pulling my chain here…"

"Dude, let's just move on before the angry Laura Dern fans flood us with hate calls. So what do we got here, we got some new Butthole Surfers with some great new stuff from the album that just hit today. This is _Pepper _from _Electriclarryland_. You're listening to 106.5 MIRA."

_  
__Mikey got with Sharon, Sharon got Cherise__  
__She was sharin' Sharon's outlook on the topic of disease__  
__Mikey had a facial scar and Bobby was a racist__  
__They were all in love dyin' they were doin' it in Texas__  
__Tommy played piano like a kid out in the rain__  
__Then he lost his leg in Dallas he was dancin' with the train__  
__They were all in love with dyin' they were drinkin' from a fountain__  
__That is pouring like an avalanche coming down the mountain_

Eileen bolted out of bed, crawling over her baggy tee shirt with an excited, high-pitched wail that turned into a shriek as she stumbled to the floor. Crawling to the radio, she cranked up the volume as she listened to her favorite band's new song with a wide and eager grin.

_I don't mind the sun sometimes, the images it shows__  
__I can taste you on my lips and smell you in my clothes__  
__Cinnamon and sugary and softly spoken lies__  
__You never know just how you look through other people's eyes_


	2. 02

Eileen raced downstairs, zipping up her hoodie and slinging her backpack over her shoulder. With the twenty dollar bill in her pocket, she had a very solid destination in mind—Mike's Music, a small store on the way to her high school, just out of the Garden Ave. exit. The knowledge that _Electriclarryland_ would be in her possession soon brought a grin to her freckled face.

Life felt good. Memorial Weekend was coming up, allowing three days free of High School. A summer trip to Toluca Lake with Lindsay, Alice, and Sarah was in order.

_Life feels damn good._ She corrected herself with joy flashing in her green eyes.

"You're late." A familiar and unwelcome voice startled her with slurred syllables and a lazy tone. Eileen's good mood seemed to have been picked off by some kind of elite military sniper. She felt herself cringe. With one hand on the ornate knob of the front door, she wished she could simply tap her heels together and be whisked far from the coming confrontation.

"Mom, I'm going to school, alright?"

"I'm not writing you off for an excused whatever or pink slip or yellow slip or… whatever the hell they want from me… to sign…" It wasn't even noon and Vanessa Galvin already reeked of red wine. Eileen nodded and forced a smile.

"Yeah, I know. I'll just do the detention thing or something, it's not that bad."

_Pfft, whatever. I'm not going to detention._

"Eileen, you're almost an adult and… you're an adult and need to exercise your responsibility. Responsible adults are responsible and are not late for school. You're almost an adult, Eileen."

"I know, mom. I'm… not even going to question that… what you just said. Tried to say." Eileen sighed.

"Are you getting smart with me, young lady?" Vanessa started toward Eileen with an angry step.

Speaking over her mother's rant about how MTV is _"rotting her brain"_ she did not hesitate to open the door and escape, "Yeah, I know, it's just horrible! So I'm going to school now! Love you, mom!"

"What's that porn trash you keep watching with those stoners and they're stoned all the time and you watch it… you're not watching it anymore!" Vanessa's speech was not only nonsensical and incoherent, but it proved effective in drawing the neighbors' curiosity.

"Bye, mom! I'm going to Dad's after school today!"

"You're an adult now, young lady! Adults are responsible adults, and go to school on time!"

"I know, it's great! Love you, mom!"

She cringed, hearing the elderly couple next door giggling to themselves. Vanessa had tripped over one of the newspapers piled on their doorstep on the way back into the house. Her wine glass shattered on the patio, causing the woman to unleash a string of slurred curses.

To her luck, she was little more than a few blocks from the train station. After a short train ride, North Ashfield High school was within sight. North Ashfield High School was a place of many good memories—Eileen was by no means a "popular" girl, but she was liked and had many friends from many different walks of life. She was often called the glue that brought the partying cheerleader Lindsay together with the fortune-telling art student Alice and the almost obnoxious stoner Sarah. Even after four great years with her three friends, she still wondered just how they tolerated each other—Lindsay hated Sarah until they shared a freshman science class with Eileen. Alice had been a transfer student not long into the semester who had become the foursome's mediator and voice of reason. The four were quite the odd bunch.

It was almost a shame that those four years were officially over in June. Lindsay already had a part time job at a yogurt shop and little interest in college, Sarah had only stayed in High School because she enjoyed being around the rest of the group, and Alice seemed to be the only one Eileen would might see in Pleasant River University come fall. Thinking about the way their small foursome would soon split brought an uncomfortable emptiness inside.

After a short train ride and a jog up to the school, Eileen was met with an irritating welcome. Students were already congregated outside the High School, and some were walking home around her. Eileen looked at the tall clock tower in the front of the campus, realizing that at 1:45PM, students were heading home on a minimum day.

…_just my luck._

Eileen looked around for Lindsay, Sarah, or Alice. They were nowhere to be found, save for a quick glimpse she got of Alice stuffing her heavy art bag into her car across the parking lot. Eileen sighed and looked down the street—North Ashfield Blvd was a busy place with a good deal of shops.

_Shops… Electriclarryland!_

She raced to Mike's Music, replaying _Pepper_ in her mind. It had sounded great on the radio that morning on MIRA. After _piouhgd _and _Independent Worm Saloon_, she was starting to worry there would never be a new album. Rushing into the store and moving for the new releases, she skimmed the titles of various CD's. None of the jewel cases held the telltale artwork of a pencil being driven viciously into a cartoon ear—she remembered seeing the cover in a magazine advertising the newest release.

"Lookin' for something, Eileen?" Mike asked.

Eileen looked up from the rack of new releases, smiling at the tall, bearded man with long brown hair, "Yeah, do you have Electriclarryland in?"

Mike shook his head with a sigh, "Nope, I was pretty pissed about that today. I was really looking forward to it, but the shipment for that won't be in until probably tonight or tomorrow morning."

"Man… well thanks, Mike. I'll come by tomorrow."

"No problem. Tell your dad I said 'hi'." Mike waved, moving back to his chair beneath a large ceiling fan, "Hey, Eileen…"

Eileen paused before exiting the store.

"It's hot as hell out there and you're wearing a hoodie?" Mike questioned with an amused laugh.

"Hey, I've only got a few more days to enjoy my angsty black high school hoodie." Eileen replied.

Mike chuckled and shook his head, "After that you're done with the punk look?"

"I don't look punk do I?"

"Well, it definitely ain't the pink frilly dresses you came in with in elementary school." Mike was right—Eileen could hardly remember the last time she let her mother talk her into wearing a dress. Had it been for Sunday Bible School back in seventh grade? Her look had consisted of ripped blue jeans, various band tee-shirts and the black hoodie she had discovered at a thrift store and fell in love with years ago.

It was almost depressing, but she had vowed that after high school, she would 'brighten' her look. Less because her mother nagged about it and more because she firmly believed that wearing bright colors put her in a better mood. After all, she was tired all the 'high school angst' jokes spurred by all the black in her wardrobe.

"Ah, I'm working on the girly look." Eileen shrugged, "I can still do the girly look, right, Mike?"

Her father's long time friend had been more like an uncle to her than a family friend. Mike had known Eileen since the day she was born and was one of the few adults she knew that had a sense of humor and manner of speaking that she could relate to. With a boyish laugh he replied, "Maybe in a cross-dressing Kurt Cobain kind of way."

"That's mean." Eileen sighed, shaking her head.

"I'm just playing, I'm playing. Stay in school, kiddo."

Eileen nodded, and waved as she stepped out of the store.

She was a bit disappointed about coming away without the eagerly-anticipated music, but she looked to the positive side. It wasn't that hot out for a day in mid-May, and she could have probably used a walk more than staying inside listening to music and reading all day. She opted to take that much needed walk to her father's house to stay for a while. Afterward, she would take the long way back to her mother's house past South Ashfield. It would be a long trip on foot, but she was more concerned with being out of the house and away from her drunken mother—no one enjoyed the company of a drunken Vanessa Galvin.

As she walked she couldn't help but feel sorry for her mother. The woman clung to the memory of her marriage with her father—James Galvin, and she even refused to go back to her maiden name after the divorce. Eileen could hardly remember the days when their happy marriage went without a single fight or argument to foul up the passing days. By the time the divorce was finalized when she was twelve, she was actually happy to see the fighting come to an end. However, she would find herself spending as much time as she could with her father after Vanessa became a manic-depressive drunk. It was a terrible and destructive way to cope, but no one seemed to expect otherwise from Vanessa.

Thanksgiving Holidays with her father were often spent listening to his family making jokes about Vanessa's alcohol addiction. Christmas mornings with her mother were spent watching the woman pass out on the bathroom floor before noon. It had come to be expected of her.

Eileen had realized that begging her mother to get help for her condition was futile many years ago.

Over the last two years, however, that time she desperately sought to spend with her father had dwindled. After he married his long-time fling—the woman that Vanessa caught him with many years ago—Denise Levin, Eileen found herself spending more time away from both parents. Denise was an absolutely detestable woman who, when her father wasn't present, always managed to make snarky little jabs at Eileen, either in her appearance or her school life. Denise had to be the most passive-aggressive bitch Eileen had ever met.

"Oh, I know. Don't worry about it though; I'll be done by next Friday." Denise's voice always had some kind of snide undertone, even when she was speaking to people she probably didn't hate. Eileen closed the front door of her father's townhouse, making an effort to remain unnoticed. She sought to climb up the stairs to her bedroom and avoid any path-crossing with Denise. To her relief, the woman in the next room was more occupied with a phone call than the quiet click of the front door.

"Well it only just came in the mail, and trust me it smells horrible. I don't know how he won't notice it."

Eileen stopped at the foot of the stairs, just past the hallway to the living room. She stepped back, taking interest—what exactly was she hoping 'he' wouldn't notice?

"Yeah, that could work. I don't know, he's not stupid, though. Maybe if he's a bit tipsy he won't care to notice."

_Who? What is she trying to pull now?_

Denise looked over in Eileen's direction, seeing the tip of her bright pink backpack's strap. She knew the girl was listening in and abruptly ended her conversation, "Hey, I gotta go sweetie. I'll talk to you later."

Hanging up, Denise stood and with a feigned smile said, "Eileen, you're already home from school?"

"Who's going to be too tipsy to notice?" Eileen demanded.

Denise's grey eyes seemed to widen for a moment, as she wondered just how much Eileen had heard, "Eavesdropping is a pretty bitchy thing to do you know. I was speaking with my sister about something you probably don't want to hear about."

"Oh, really? Well don't mind me asking what it is, because I might just be interested."

With a deep laugh, Denise pulled a cigarette from the black box in her pocket. That sickening, sweet smell of cloves was going to stink up the living room soon, Eileen knew. As she lit it, she continued, "Just a little something-something to spice up the bedroom."

Eileen cringed—that was by far one of the last things she wanted to know.

"Your daddy's kind of having trouble getting his tools to work, but he doesn't want to turn to the big V just yet." With a coy grin, Denise exhaled a cloud of rich, aromatic smoke. She held the Djarum cigarettes closer to her heart than anything else in the world, but Eileen found the pseudo-saccharine smell nauseating.

"Well, that's just… gross. Thanks for sharing…" Eileen replied before turning back to the stairs.

Denise gave a low laugh in that raspy voice of hers and leaned against the wall as she watched Eileen climb, "I have no problem telling you all about how much your daddy loves me."

"Well, you just keep on telling yourself that, because he's probably the only one."

"I find it a lot sadder that you insist on coming around just like your mom. I'd say let it go already, but what do I know, I'm just that bitch stepmother, aren't I?"

Eileen shot Denise a cold glare of absolute death. She fought back the urge to tell that woman to go play in a freeway or even simply get the hell out of her life. There was no point in fighting with Denise; the woman always managed to pull her father into her side of the story and it would just make an even bigger rift between what was left of her family. She opted to calmly move to her bedroom and lock the door behind her.

The old record player that her mother had given her was kept in her bedroom at her father's house along with a rather impressive collection of vinyl LP's and EP's that Mike had given her. Throwing on the _Meat Puppets_ LP and lying on her bed, she let the familiar chaotic chords of _Reward_ take her mind from the bitterness toward that woman downstairs.

"_He who receives a prophet because he is a prophet"_ Eileen sang along in a hushed voice, _"will receive the prophet's reward."_

There was little to do around her father's house, but it was better than being with her mother, Eileen knew. Because Eileen was often just in and out of her room at her mother's house, it had taken a messier 'teenage' look with the occasional clothes strewn about or books left on the floor where she had fallen asleep mid-sentence. Often, once morning came she went to school and spent the rest of her day either with her friends or in her room at her father's house. Because it was frequented more, it was far tidier and reflected more of Eileen's interests in posters and decorations than the other. If one were to step in to the messy room of her mother's house and then see the tidy room at her father's, they would almost certainly think the rooms belonged to two different girls.

Eileen decided to spend her afternoon hitting her textbooks and studying for the final exams that would take place next week. While she would have rather spent the day swimming with her friends at Lindsay's house, she figured they were all studying or catching up on late homework before the end of the school year. Well, all except for Sarah, who had a strange talent for cramming the night before a test and passing with a high C or B… she reasoned that the pot helped her study. Eileen wasn't about to test that suggestion, and with a degree of amusement, took her word for it.

The acoustic guitar across her room, sitting on its stand seemed to eye her like a coy temptress every minute she spent reviewing her Chemistry textbook. Eileen would have rather spent her afternoon playing, but her mother's slurred words rang through her mind and painted an amused grin on her face,

"_You're an adult now, young lady! Adults are responsible adults, and go to school on time!"_

Of course, she knew that much of what her mother said was nonsensical, but maybe trying to live by that 'responsible adult' thing would be beneficial. As another step toward being a responsible adult she sought to know her Chemistry concepts and not fear the upcoming exam on her problem subject. But still… the acoustic guitar she lovingly called, "Blue" seemed to allure her with its fresh new steel strings she had put in just days ago.

The entire afternoon was spent studying while trying to push away Blue's seductive 'come hither' calls.

"No, Blue, not today. I've got finals to cram for." Eileen sighed to the guitar.

When she heard yelling downstairs, the familiar clashing of a cruel-sounding raspy voice and a high pitched angered one were all too recognizable. Eileen rolled her eyes at the new annoyance and shut her textbook. With a glance at the clock she realized it was already five… almost evening. Her mother must have come to pick her up and started bickering with Denise.

_Time to go break them up… though I really should let Mom kick the shit out of Denise today…_

That exchange on the stairs earlier in the day still brought an unpleasant taste to Eileen's mouth. Something reminiscent of those fake-sweet cigarettes Denise always clamped between her lipstick-caked lips.

Eileen was not even halfway down the stairs when she looked up to see Denise swinging at her mother and taking a fistful of her long, brown hair.

"Holy shit! What the hell are you guys doing? Stop it!"

Vanessa was screaming a string of obscenities as she took two handfuls of Denise's short blonde hair and thrust the woman into a nearby armoire. The glass windows on the doors cracked against Denise's face and Eileen could only cringe as the two devolved into warring animals. She wasn't about to question what that fight started over—it was just another day in the Galvin residence that would end in someone calling the police and threats of a restraining order. While a part of her wanted to get between them and tear the two women away from each other, another part took inevitable amusement in seeing blood running freely from Denise's pointy little nose.

As Denise screamed something about calling the cops on that "drunken bitch" and demanding Eileen to get the phone, a resolution was made. A calm and composed Eileen climbed back up to her room, picked up her backpack and stuffed it with some clean clothes. She wasted no time in placing Blue into its black bag case. Slinging her belongings over her shoulder, she stepped down the stairs and passed the warring women. She was done with the drama.

"Good luck, you guys." Eileen called back as she shut the front door behind her. She had no doubt in her mind that her mother would put Denise in her place this time. At five in the evening there was still another good hour and a half before her dad came home. He could deal with the mess. Eileen may have been preparing to be a responsible adult, but like hell would she be the adult to those squabbling girls.

Despite all of Eileen's efforts to remain strong and indifferent to the chaos Denise brought to her once happy family, tears began to fall. She gripped the strap of her black gig bag tight and fought to think of something other than the tattered excuse of a family battling just a few houses behind her. Blue hadn't been played in a couple long days, and those steel strings needed breaking in, she reasoned.

The tears wouldn't stop.

_Rip that bitch in half, mom._

In half. Just like Denise had ripped her family in half.


	3. 03

Walter's head was throbbing and his stomach ached with enough relentlessness to pull him back to consciousness. A pleasant world awaited him as he found himself lying on the dirty tile floor of a subway bathroom, curled up against a disgusting toilet. A small boy kneeling on the ground to look beneath the stall walls was staring at him with big, curious brown eyes.

Walter stared at the boy for a few moments before the little boy said something to him in Spanish, _"¿Qué te pasa? …Ey, **señor**!, ¿Qué te pasa?"_

The boy's father, a short man in dark blue jeans wandered in and took his son's hand to lead him away as if Walter were some kind of hot furnace to curious fingertips. The father was scolding his son in that same familiar language. Walter couldn't help but think that after living with Cynthia and her family for so many years, he would have picked up some words other than, _"pinche cabron"_orvarious obscenities that ended in, _"tu madre"_.

He gathered his scattered mind and rose up on legs that felt like thick jelly. He felt lucky to be free of severe queasiness, but the thought of the previous night—despite being a blur—brought that familiar taste of bile to his throat. Spotting blood on the floor, he realized that he must have hit his head at some point. He dragged his body to the sink and rinsed the foul taste from his mouth with less-than enticing water. Not even a splash of the freezing liquid to the face brought his throbbing head relief.

As he rose up to meet his reflection, he saw the long gash over his forehead. It stung to touch, and dried trails of blood were stubborn to be rinsed from his stubbly face. As he stood there, something strange came over him. There was something different beginning at that very moment.

Staring hard into his reflection, he only saw a tall, worn-out twenty-nine year old. With shoulder length, dirty blonde hair and weathered hazel eyes, the tired reflection stared back at him. The bathroom was dark… moldy, dirt-stained tile floors and walls, and a putrid scent of sickness and filth. All he could hear was the hum of a flickering fluorescent light overhead.

Something was definitely not the same. It was as if he had been listening to a single calm, down tempo melody for years that was brought to an abrupt end and replaced with one low and foreboding key.

"…what changed?" He whispered.

"You changed."

Walter did not turn. An unfamiliar face stepped out behind his reflection to match a recognizable voice. So that was what the stair man looked like? …A tall, dark-haired man with a torn, scarred face and a long, bloodstained coat?

"You got a body." Walter replied.

The stair man looked down as his tattered, disfigured lips curled up in a smile, "I've always had a body. You just never cared to see me."

"I see you now."

"That you do."

Walter took a deep breath and stood. As the light flickered, the stair man disappeared for a half second of darkness. He reappeared behind Walter, standing just a few inches shorter than he. Walter could feel hot breath against his neck as the man spoke in a scratchy, almost hushed voice.

"You know what to do, Walter? It would be so easy to just kill them all. Why don't you?"

"I… I don't want to hurt anyone. I just want…"

"What do you want?"

"…I-I just want… I want it all to end."

"You want to return to nonexistence. …Something of a deep sleep from which you'll never awake."

"I don't want to die."

"You always have been good at lying to yourself."

"I want to leave now." Walter said, turning.

The stair man was gone. The sinking feeling in his aching gut left him wondering what had just happened. Walter had stopped questioning the state of his mental health years ago, when he found he could take refuge in an almost dream-like state where he met that man on the stairs. Normal people did not fabricate their own little universes unless they lived in padded cells, he knew.

_Don't question it. Never question it. You're fucked up enough to begin with; don't go digging for answers that will just make things worse._

Walter left the bathroom and was met with a somewhat busy station. People were boarding trains and leaving in dwindling numbers. It looked a lot like the end of the evening rush hour, after everyone got off of work. A nearby digital clock on the wall confirmed it—7:17PM. When had he passed out?

Body still screaming with pain, Walter made his way to the Garden St. Platform. Cynthia was probably going to have plenty to say about him not showing up last night. Like always, he predicted she would tell a blatant lie about being with some other man. It was always the same lie, followed by an accusation that he went out and "fucked some tramp". The sheer irony of those words coming from her mouth brought slight amusement. She was truly a piece of work.

He had arrived just on time to catch the 7:25 train to Garden St. The wind tunneling in through the concrete and metal station announced the train's arrival. People were lining up around the platform, a small group of six. He saw a tall, blonde woman holding the hands of her two children, a sniffling teenager with a large black guitar bag on her back, a pale, sweaty man with a blue baseball cap and another man in a gray dress suit reading a golf magazine.

Walter joined the group and felt his stomach churn. One of the two adolescent children beside the tall blonde gave him an indifferent look. He glanced back down at the little boy only to see him stick his tongue out. It made him narrow his eyes and stick his tongue out. The little boy flipped Walter the middle finger and giggled.

"Dick." Walter muttered under his breath and looked over to the approaching train.

The heavyset, chalky-skinned man with a face full of pimples looked over with a grimace. He reeked of sweat and grease, and the stains on his striped blue and white shirt added to his almost grotesque appearance. Walter chose to ignore the man's intense stares.

"Jesus, you smell like shit, man." The sweaty man said, shifting away. Walter thought to simply laugh to himself and ignore the man before the teenager gave a hitched scream.

As if everything around him slowed, the sweaty man stepped away and drove his elbow into the crying teenage girl by chance. She slipped forward, arms flailing out to reach for something, _anything_ to catch her balance on the edge of the platform. Walter, standing directly behind the girl reached out and gripped the black guitar bag for her very life. With one strong pull, the teenager was pulled back onto the platform and escaped a very certain death by train.

It would have been the same death that Walter remembered himself working for the night before. Death had come very close to taking the wrong soul in that moment. If there had ever been a god of irony, it would have certainly had a spiteful sense of humor.

The teenager, a frightened girl with short brown hair and a black hoodie looked up at him with the most beautiful olive eyes he had ever seen. Not even realizing she was still pressed against his body, he found himself staring at her like an entranced man beholding an artistic masterpiece. She only looked back up with him with a mix of wide-eyed confusion, gratitude, and curiosity. Tears still trickled down her freckled cheeks as she regained her balance, still clutching at his arms with a degree of clumsiness and confusion.

"Tha… thank you." She breathed, still working to gather her composure.

Walter found his mind running blank. There was a tidal wave of emotions crashing down on him—he had never been very good at speaking to women. To make matters worse, _beautiful_ women very easily made his thoughts crash into hypnotized nothingness with just a kind smile or offhanded glance. He could only imagine that in his nervous anxiety, he looked like a mouth-breathing fool.

The green-eyed teenager boarded the train and was quick to take a window seat near the middle of the car. Walter followed, barely managing to tear his eyes away from her as he took a seat near the back. He had been so distracted by the girl that he hadn't even thought to find that sweaty, obese man in the baseball cap and make him apologize. Looking around and seeing only the tall blonde with the two bored-looking children, he figured that man must have gotten on a different car.

The doors closed and the train was moving.

He found himself once again under that girl's unintentional spell, staring at the back of her head and admiring the way her short mahogany locks curled up against her jaw line. Why was such a pretty young girl crying? When she began to turn his way, he averted his gaze and found a blotch of black gum on the floor to feign interest in.

_Why are you even looking at her? She can't be more than sixteen or seventeen, you asshole._ He scolded himself. Of course, it wasn't just her beauty that captured him—those eyes… there was something about those eyes… the way they were just slightly almond shaped and lined with long, dark lashes. They were such a vivid shade of green.

She made a sniffling sound with her nose as she wiped some salty tear streaks from her cheek with her wrist. Her heart was still beating hard and fast in her chest and her nerves were still tense after that short brush with death. Inside, she was still thanking whatever higher power existed that there was such a quick man behind her to pull her out of harm's way. She glanced back over her shoulder and saw the man staring at the floor, looking exhausted.

When Walter glanced back up at her, she grinned and turned around. He sat there with his hands in the pockets of a drab green army coat, with long, unkempt hair. His expression reminded her of a deer caught in headlights.

Walter felt his stomach hitch up nervously—it wasn't very pleasant considering the way it already ached in synch with his agonizing headache. The girl picked up her things and stood, walking over to him and taking the seat right in front of his. The teenager hunched down in a playful way, leaning her arms on the back of her seat and nestled her head atop her black sleeves. At that point he was absolutely trapped by those alluring green eyes as she tried to conceal a smile on her tear-stained freckled cheeks.

"You kinda look like Kurt Cobain." She broke the silence after what felt like ages.

His voice couldn't be summoned no matter how hard he tried. For a long time he just stared, before finding quiet laughter. He must have looked like he was having an unnaturally delayed reaction. That low laugh was almost like a long-awaited exhale as he clutched the little doll in his left pocket. It soothed his nerves.

"…thanks, I guess." Walter replied.

"You guess? What's wrong, you don't like Nirvana?"

Shaking his head, Walter was quick to answer, "No, no, I like Nirvana. I… I just usually get called 'Jesus' before 'Kurt Cobain'. I guess it's because I don't have the beard going on."

"Well, you've got something going on, so you're almost at the Jesus thing." She said with a wide smile.

Walter felt himself smiling. It felt good.

"I could almost say I got saved by Jesus today. But I'll have to settle for Kurt Cobain instead."

"I could say I saved an angel today." Walter thought aloud before realizing just how corny that must have sounded. As the girl's jaw dropped with a slight grin, followed by a chuckle, he turned his gaze back to the dirty floor. He couldn't kick himself hard enough for not thinking before speaking.

"I'm no angel. Just Eileen." She said.

_Eileen… Eileen…_ Walter repeated her name over and over in his head. It felt familiar. Amazingly familiar, but he could not pinpoint where. He had probably just heard "_Come on, Eileen"_ over the radio and thought nothing of it. Yes, that had to be why the name stuck out to him.

"Eileen… you should stay a little further from the edge of the platform next time."

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure I've learned my lesson." Eileen said.

Eileen tilted her head a bit to get a better look at her stubbly savior with the painful looking cut on his forehead. After a moment, he glanced up at her, and then looked away again as if he were a child that had been caught breaking some important rule. It was then that she realized he was either annoyed by her presence or just extremely shy. It must have been the former—she was not exactly a knock-out. Even the most desperate guys at her school didn't have such a hard time just looking at her.

Eileen could take a hint. She began to turn, opting not to pester her savior any further.

"Sorry to bother you. Just wanted to thank you again."

Walter shook his head, "You're not bothering me. …I…"

He was met with great interest in her olive eyes as he searched for something to say, "I'm just… not feeling too well."

"I kind of thought you looked like… like you partied too hard or something."

_If only that were the case_, Walter thought, "No… I… well, something like that."

"That sucks. Hangover?"

Walter nodded, "A really terrible one."

"…I heard that having a Bloody Mary is actually really good for a hangover. The celery has a lot of really good vitamins."

"I'm just going to take a bunch of aspirin."

"No, no! That's even worse!" Eileen said, "Aspirin's a blood thinner and you're gonna feel even worse."

"Do you do this often?" Walter asked. She didn't look like a wild party girl. But maybe that was because he expected party girls to look like the scantily clad Cynthia or her sisters.

Eileen shook her head, "No, I don't like to drink or anything. Two of my friends do though, like… nonstop. Lindsay even told me about this one remedy with like, egg yolk and pepper but that just sounds like it would make things even worse."

"I've tried that before…"

"Yeah? Does it work at all?"

Walter shook his head, laughing, "It didn't stay down very long."

"Well, you live and you learn." Eileen shrugged, "…I hope you feel better soon."

"Thanks."

Eileen was silent for a moment, looking out the window at the passing lights of another stop. People awaiting their train were momentary blurs. Her own stop was coming up soon—Adler St. She found herself wishing she had a bit more time to talk with her nameless hero. At that moment she knew she had to at least get a name to that weary face of his.

"What's your name?" She asked.

Walter paused, or rather, froze again. Eileen smiled—he looked like he himself had forgotten. Finally remembering to speak he answered, "…Walter."

"Walter. Well… my stop's coming up. …Thank you. For everything. For being." Eileen said with a warm smile.

He was lost in the comforting gentleness of her voice and the sweetest words anyone had ever said to him. It was a little heartbreaking to see her go, and he wished long and hard that one day he would see her again one day, even if from afar. As the train came to a loud, slow halt, and the doors slid open, Eileen picked up her backpack and guitar bag. She gave him one last smile, "See you around, Walter."

He waved and smiled. She was soon gone, and he watched through the window as she disappeared up some stairs at the end of the Adler St. platform.

He found himself thinking her name again and even said it aloud, just to feel it roll off his tongue, "Eileen…"

When the train picked up once more, he realized that Garden St. was the next stop.

Cynthia would be waiting for him. A very unhappy Cynthia that was ready to reveal the fire-breathing monster that was her true personality.

He sighed and sunk back into his seat, trying to collect the scattered memories of what had happened the night before. After getting off work, he picked up a bouquet of her favorite flowers. It wasn't that late—probably six or seven and he was finishing up a good hour earlier than usual. It was her birthday and he had promised himself to take her out and away from that tiny apartment, even if only for a little while. Any time away from those drug addicted neighbors would be less time she spent getting completely wasted on something.

Of course, what else could he expect coming home an hour earlier than to find Cynthia with another man in their bedroom?

What else had happened, he wondered… the rest was a hazy mess of events, the most prominent was kneeling over a toilet, retching for hours in the men's room somewhere in the subway. After emptying his stomach, he had passed out, probably hitting his head somewhere between hovering over the toilet and hitting the dirty tile floor.

Walter didn't care to think of what would come when he set foot in that apartment. Cynthia would likely either be too high to care, or be waiting impatiently for him to come back. Or even worse, she might have become uncontrollably bitter and let Julie or Catalina something to his car. It wouldn't be the first time.

Two years ago, he had been coming out of the video store he managed on a warm night in May. A drunk driver had plowed into him while he crossed the street on the way to his car. After rolling over the man's hood and being left with a broken arm and a few other wonderfully excruciating dislocated limbs, he was taken to St. Jerome's Hospital. An elderly woman had the kindness to call 911 after the drunk driver fled the scene. After a stay in the hospital, he had taken a bit too much comfort in the left over prescription painkillers.

When Cynthia came yelling at him the day after her birthday demanding to know why he didn't even say "Happy Birthday" or "I love you", he just basked in the numbness and lack of concern induced by his painkillers.

He remembered her telling him that he just smiled at her and let a single ray of light through a wall of almost impenetrable dark clouds,, "Because you're a bitch."

Walter had been met with a ring-laden fist to his already numb face. After she left, he knew blood was trickling past his lips from his nose, but he could care less.

_If only I could just tell her that sober._

Julie, who had been visiting Cynthia and instigated that little outburst decided it would be appropriate to go slash his tires, reasoning, "Oh with that arm, you shouldn't even be driving, anyway. Besides, you should learn to treat my sister better, you _pinche marricon_!"

Although it was too early to say whether Cynthia sent her legion of evil sisters on him, he had to admit this probably counted as strike two in Julie's mind. That girl always found reasons to either mess with him or inspire Cynthia to spend an entire night yelling at him.

As he took his leave on the Garden St. stop, the tall blonde woman's little boy flipped him off again with a toothless grin. Noticing that the woman was more interested in her copy of some Stephen King novel than watching her snot-nosed kid, Walter flipped him the middle finger right back.

_Dick._


End file.
